Yes it will take many years. This whole thing has already played out with FSF and Replicant. They ended up stuck working on a couple of ever aging devices as many new generations of devices were launched and all the technologies in smartphones evolved.
If people want open devices they should maybe better explore open hardware. Im not talking about devices, like Librem where the schematics are open but the chips, which are the parts which do all the work, are all closed, but rather devices with open silicon.
GrapheneOS does not include any of the Google apps that implement Play Protect. You can install them, but they run in the sandbox like normal apps and so are not highly privileged. They are unable to block installation of apps, install apps or uninstall apps as they are on stock Androids
Rethink DNS app provides the ability to do that. Also can use it to connect to any Wireguard VPN and also monitor connections.
There are various apps that either connect directly to an IP address or do DNS resolution themselves to sidestep this kind of blocking. Rethink lets you stop apps making these kind of connections bypassing DNS and whatever DNS filtering you have set up to control their connections
What if you truly want the security properties provided by a device which can keep keys in a way where you fully control their use but its extremely hard for anyone to extract them?
Root does not only provide privilege escalation, it also provides attractive options for exploit persistence on a device, something which is difficult to achieve on modern Android and iOS.
Not sure if you've used GrapheneOS recently? If apps are heavily tied to Google Play Services you can install that and, in the vast majority of cases, get very good compatibility.
Compatibility with carriers also improved a lot a few years ago. Configurations for most carriers are pulled in from the stock Pixel OS. Some US carriers do weird things that depend upon having highly privileged apps bundled into the OS which, for security reasons, GrapheneOS doesnt include. I dont recall AT&T being one of them.
GrapheneOS is very usable and fine as a everyday phone for normal people.
Some apps suggest they use it when they dont. Some (most) apps use a weaker form which an android/AOSP operating system can comply with, without being registered with Google (licencing Play Services) see eg. https://grapheneos.org/usage#banking-apps
Very few apps use the full strict version of safetynet that requires hardware attestation
It used to be the case that iphones were way ahead of security in android. With the efforts that have gone into improving things in the last few years and Google stepping up the quality of their hardware security with their Pixel lines that is no longer the case.
iPhones also have nasty (sometimes unpatchable) vulns. Android gets ever stronger protections against malicious apps, doesnt rely so much on Malware being screened from the store (malware regularly gets through onto both Play Store and Apples App Store)
The writeup of the bug states that it was patched in the January update for Pixels, which GrapheneOS has. But previous work on applying mali patches early led to GarpheneOS having a fix earlier than stock Pixels
https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/1914#i...
While its likely Cellebrite make use of some known (and possibly some unknown) exploits to bypass the screen lock on some phone models and get at user data, sometimes they require the device to be unlocked and doubtlessly make use of adb to pull out user data.
Encryption on Android devices has changed over the last few years, introducing the possibility for File Based Encryption FBE, later making in mandatory.
File based encryption enables apps to use keys to encrypt their data that are flushed when the screen is locked. Many security concerned apps like password managers and OTP apps make use of this.
If you feel the need you can use 'multiple users' to create an extra user or use a work profile (Island, Shelter, Insular) to keep sensitive apps and data. These have seperate encryption keys that are flushed upon switching off the work profile or restarting the phone (for multi user). You can still use the main user on the phone with the work profile/multi user encryption keys not held in memory.
Theres a lot more to the android app sandbox than just running processes as seperate users. Theoretically something similar could be implemented in some other 'typical linux system'. It would be a huge undertaking.
If you are thinking about security need to consider not only malicious apps, but possible attack vectors opened up by any application.
This paper is a couple of years old, it explains how it all works on Android https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.05572
There are endless launcher apps and icon packs you can get from F-Droid or elsewhere if you want to change the look of your phone.
AnySoftKeyboard is the keyboard on F-Droid with the most features
Magikeyboard is a function you enable in KeepassDX. Gives you an extra 'keyboard' you can switch to just for entering passwords. Stops other apps being able to swipe your passwords from your clipboard.
This is what CopperheadOS has become. Trading off the reputation they gained from before the split.
When they were still publishing their sources they were often lagging months behind with basic AOSP security updates. Still not updated to Android 11 yet, 2 months since it was launched, which, as they support Pixels, means they now have 3 monthly updates worth of device specific security patches that can't of been applied.
GrapheneOS moved to 11 in September, not so long after it was released by Google
If people want open devices they should maybe better explore open hardware. Im not talking about devices, like Librem where the schematics are open but the chips, which are the parts which do all the work, are all closed, but rather devices with open silicon.